Recently, I read of a guy who triumphantly proved that the Earth is flat by taking a carpenter's level on a plane flight to show that cruising was always level: if the Earth were not flat, the pilot would have to keep changing the attitude (dip the nose) to adjust for the curvature, which should show up on the level.

Now that you have finished cleaning beverages from you screen/keyboard, what I want to know is "so what?" For a picosecond, imagine that the FEs were correct, that the Earth is indeed some sort of flat thing: what then? What do they hope to gain or change by proving a flat Earth? Does turtle soup become a sin? I mean, I am just not understanding the why.

__________________
"If a person saying he was something was all there was to it, this country'd be full of rich men and good-looking women. Too bad it isn't that easy.... In short, when someone else says you're a writer, that's when you're a writer... not before."Purveyor of fine science fiction since 1982.

The points are at the corners. The flat earth is shaped like a square not a circle, after all.

Kidding aside, there was some line in the Bible about something-something-four-corners-of-the-earth and some 1850s? Bible literalists took the "EVERY WORD IS TRUE" bit a little too seriously. Also, there was something about disproving various sciences (speed of light stuff, etc) by having a flat or hollow or bowl shaped earth.

Best source I've ever read about it (and I haven't read it for years, hence the fuzzy details above) is Martin Gardner's Fads and Fallacies In The Name Of Science which has a long chapter on hollow/flat earthers (and actually takes the time to explain what they actually believe, before getting snarky about it.) I highly recommend it. It's the best guide to kook science ever published.

Kidding aside, there was some line in the Bible about something-something-four-corners-of-the-earth and some 1850s? Bible literalists took the "EVERY WORD IS TRUE" bit a little too seriously.

Or, "If every word isn't true, does that mean hating the gays is my problem?"

I'm just about convinced that's relevant to at least some of them: They really, really need the "ritual purity" parts of the Bible to be "correct" in their sense of the term, which means that ritual purity is the same as moral rectitude, which means that their hatred of "abnormal" or "unclean" sexual behavior isn't just them, it's due to their inherent Godliness, as opposed to their exaggerated disgust response being inborn and the cause of their conservatism.

For that to be true, the Bible must be completely unimpeachable, or else someone would be able to poke holes in the whole thing, concluding that, while homosexual behavior is known in the animal kingdom and that plenty of historical cultures have been accepting of homosexuality, homophobia is a moral fad, something limited to a relative few places and times.

And if homophobia is just a fad, their hatred is on their own heads. Their obsession is on their own heads. They can't justify it by saying the Being What Is Who Am says being gay is wrong.

So. "Gays make me feel ooky, therefore the world is flat." Hey, it's just as reasonable as the idea that Jesus finds the inheritance tax a moral abomination.

Well, if the earth were actually flat, and someone proved it to be so, that person would be the most eminent scientist in the world right now. He or she would have completely changed significant areas of scientific research. A Nobel Prize in physics wouldn't be out of the question.

Some Flat Earthers are just trolling but others are deadly serious and truly insane. They aren't trying to prove anything. That is reality to them. It is hardly unique or even that rare. There are people that truly believe that the World Trade Centers were brought down by explosives planted by the U.S. government and the planes (and the passengers) either didn't exist at all or were in on it.

It is an uncomfortable truth but a significant fraction of the population is truly mentally ill at any given time and you can find an example of almost anything. I have a wealthy aunt that is sweet but crazier than a march hare. She spends her time going to UFO and Bigfoot conferences. She isn't a flat-earther but she will fall for just about anything else. There are hundreds of thousands of people or more just like her all over the U.S.

"Someone has to stand up to the experts!" said by John Donald "Don" McLeroy, Republican dentist in Bryan, Texas, and former Chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, which establishes policy for the state public school system. Referring to teaching Creationism equally with the Theory* of Evolution in Texas schools.

Recently, I read of a guy who triumphantly proved that the Earth is flat by taking a carpenter's level on a plane flight to show that cruising was always level: if the Earth were not flat, the pilot would have to keep changing the attitude (dip the nose) to adjust for the curvature, which should show up on the level.

Now that you have finished cleaning beverages from you screen/keyboard, what I want to know is "so what?" For a picosecond, imagine that the FEs were correct, that the Earth is indeed some sort of flat thing: what then? What do they hope to gain or change by proving a flat Earth? Does turtle soup become a sin? I mean, I am just not understanding the why.

Tell the moron that if you tie a toy plane to a string by the landing gear and spin it around in a circle, the plane will always remain level with relative to the center of the circle, it will be RELEVELING itself constantly every point of the way so to speak.

And it is traveling a ROUND path, not FLAT.

The real plane tracks its attitude using a string called gravity, which pulls towards...

wait for it

The center of the round earth.

If you have the plane follow a laser beam, which has no normal choice but to be straight, the plane will fly off into space (granting said plane has the engines to do so)

Im old and tired and worked all day, if i can grasp that concept...
... well i will let you guys pick a catch phrase.

If the Earth were not flat, the pilot would have to keep changing the attitude (dip the nose) to adjust for the curvature, which should show up on the level.

Thats so mental.

The airplane doesn't fly down its axis exactly, its not like a car...

well cars drift, so they don't even go straight.. well there is no front wheel that is "straight" as the front tyres are toed in, so its the average of the tyres, and the toe is set only somewhat close to being even, so the average isn't quite the direction either.

Same with the plane, if they put the brakes on, they pitch UP... so up can mean down anyway.

The spirit level is in no way accurate enough to show the variation between the pitch for a very slow ascent and a very slow descent anyway.

Why is someone so out of their element in declaring their belief in a flat earth ?
And how the hell do they explain circumnavigations of the earth ???

I think its more of a social thing.. there's this thing called "contrarian". They say that the authorities are wrong on everything. you know, water is a gas and glass is ionic. they tell you 1+1=3 the second after the government said 1+1=2

The spirit level is in no way accurate enough to show the variation between the pitch for a very slow ascent and a very slow descent anyway.

The reality is that a cruising airplane flies with a slight positive pitch of a couple degrees or so all the time. I believe this is probably in order to offset mach tuck, which affects subsonic airplanes. The level was registered to the cruise attitude, which does not correspond to ground plumb.

Interesting side question: as I listened to Neil step onto the surface of the moon, everyone in the world at the time had been born before men had walked on the moon; as I watched the rover's camera show the Apollo 17 lunar module blast off, everyone born thereafter was born after men walked on the moon; are there now more people alive born after the end of the Apollo moon program than those born before it?

The reality is that a cruising airplane flies with a slight positive pitch of a couple degrees or so all the time. I believe this is probably in order to offset mach tuck, which affects subsonic airplanes. The level was registered to the cruise attitude, which does not correspond to ground plumb.

It is more simple than that. The wing needs to fly at a positive angle to the relative airflow (angle of attack), otherwise there is no lift. The angle of the fuselage then is the wing angle plus or minus any rigging angle between the wing and fuselage (angle of incidence). You can design a plane that has zero body angle but it will only be level at one speed, any faster and it will be angled down, any slower and it will be angled up.

Interesting side question: as I listened to Neil step onto the surface of the moon, everyone in the world at the time had been born before men had walked on the moon; as I watched the rover's camera show the Apollo 17 lunar module blast off, everyone born thereafter was born after men walked on the moon; are there now more people alive born after the end of the Apollo moon program than those born before it?

Tell the moron that if you tie a toy plane to a string by the landing gear and spin it around in a circle, the plane will always remain level with relative to the center of the circle, it will be RELEVELING itself constantly every point of the way so to speak.

And it is traveling a ROUND path, not FLAT.

The real plane tracks its attitude using a string called gravity, which pulls towards...

wait for it The center of the round earth.

If you have the plane follow a laser beam, which has no normal choice but to be straight, the plane will fly off into space (granting said plane has the engines to do so)

Im old and tired and worked all day, if i can grasp that concept...
... well i will let you guys pick a catch phrase.

I'm heading for a nap on my flat bed on the round earth.

Yet wherever you position your bed on this so-called 'round earth' it remains flat!!!

I'll bet if you had a spirit level in there with you it would show exactly the same thing.

Interesting side question: as I listened to Neil step onto the surface of the moon, everyone in the world at the time had been born before men had walked on the moon; as I watched the rover's camera show the Apollo 17 lunar module blast off, everyone born thereafter was born after men walked on the moon; are there now more people alive born after the end of the Apollo moon program than those born before it?

This meme sums up the position, as I see it. Flat Earthers think that having the Earth at the centre of all creation, designed for humans, makes them special, whereas having humans evolve by chance on one small planet circling a frankly rather mediocre star in the unfashionable western spiral arm of a rather dull galaxy etc etc, means they are not that important.

For a picosecond, imagine that the FEs were correct, that the Earth is indeed some sort of flat thing: what then? What do they hope to gain or change by proving a flat Earth?

Dude. Think about us Dopers. We will spend hours posting to show that someone who is wrong is wrong. If one imagines what you ask us to imagine, ie that FE's are correct, then it isn't the slightest bit surprising they would advocate for it.

This guy was off-base in trying to do this experiment with a level, but it could be done with a gyroscope.

No, it could not.

What i mean by that is HIS experiment was to prove the earth is flat

The gyroscope would show that the plane is actually changing attitude with reference to a fixed point in space, which would show that the plane is traversing a sphere (or at least a cylinder) and would show the earth is NOT flat. This is not Narnia, and we don't float to the edge off into Aslan's country to visit the Emperor beyond the sea.

I was going to make a point that this is no proof as an plane in orbit making one rotation per revolution will always have its floor parallel to the tangent line(s) directly beneath it thus it is always level.

But then I read this quote from the guy in the video

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flat Earth Idiot

The bubble doesn’t stay centered due to gravity. Understand that gravity is a still just a theory. Consider how gravity supposedly comes about…a molten metal core which somehow becomes magnetized. If that is the case, then metal foundries should all be magnetized…should they not? Also, how does magnetism effect an air bubble inside a glass cylinder containing a liquid more saline than water?

__________________
The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not represent any other persons, organizations, spirits, thinking machines, hive minds or other sentient beings on this world or any adjacent dimensions in the multiverse.

Claiming the earth be flat has to do with mythology, not science. A person could be sincere in his or her beliefs, but one should suspect anyone conducting a "scientific" test of the curvature of the earth to be not so. After all, such experimentation smacks of heresy and witchcraft. If it is written in scripture that the earth is flat, that's it, there is nothing to check.

Flat earth proponents should not try to use airplanes to prove their assumptions.

I mean, what if the flight path got him from NY to Tokyo by way of the North Pole? Little hard to explain that sudden and immediate direction change from North to South without knocking over his level.

What does a flat earth look like? A disc? If it's a disc, is all of the known earth on one side of the disc, or can you take a shortcut from Omaha to Shanghai by digging?

You know why a soap bubble is a sphere? Because it's the most efficient shape it can be.

Claiming the earth be flat has to do with mythology, not science. A person could be sincere in his or her beliefs, but one should suspect anyone conducting a "scientific" test of the curvature of the earth to be not so. After all, such experimentation smacks of heresy and witchcraft. If it is written in scripture that the earth is flat, that's it, there is nothing to check.

This is the real answer.

Any FE adherent proposing an experiment to prove it has already surrendered to what he thinks of as the Dark Side.

"Believe because Bible" is the only internally consistent FE position. Accept no substitutes.

"Believe because Bible" is the only internally consistent FE position. Accept no substitutes.

No, there are conspiry theorists out there that are flat earthers who pride themselves on not falling for what suckers fall for and aren't particularly religious. Ever listen to the Joe Rogan podcast? Eddie Bravo is a seemingly intelligent guy that is a flat earther, Moon theory conspirathist, JFK conspirathist, chemtrail believer, Illuminati believer, etc. The rest of us fall for what we're being fed.

The bubble doesn’t stay centered due to gravity. Understand that gravity is a still just a theory. Consider how gravity supposedly comes about…a molten metal core which somehow becomes magnetized. If that is the case, then metal foundries should all be magnetized…should they not? Also, how does magnetism effect an air bubble inside a glass cylinder containing a liquid more saline than water?

Wait what?
Molten core is Yes, how we generate a magnetic field that saves us from being microwaved, but it has little to do with gravity.
If our core cooled and went solid, we might all be fried alive by radiation, but no one would float off the earth

Mars has gravity, it has no molten core it went solid eons ago, same with the moon.
Any object of sufficient mass will display appreciable gravity, even a cosmic ball of play-doh.

And a flat earth can not have a molten core, not the way the explain it existing

And iron foundries do generate magnetic fields.

And magnetism does not affect the bubble (Not in the sense of what this guy is saying)
The "Theoretical" gravity does.

More like maybe. The core has two layers. The inner core appears to be not fluid. It is not clear whether it is solid or some other phase, like a proto-degenerate plasma. Some really interesting shit is going on down there, which has far reaching effects, but no effects that would show up in an air bubble in a tube of antifreeze (I doubt that level juice is saline).

No, there are conspiry theorists out there that are flat earthers who pride themselves on not falling for what suckers fall for and aren't particularly religious. Ever listen to the Joe Rogan podcast? Eddie Bravo is a seemingly intelligent guy that is a flat earther, Moon theory conspirathist, JFK conspirathist, chemtrail believer, Illuminati believer, etc. The rest of us fall for what we're being fed.

Instead of playing about with the level, he should have just looked out of the window to see if the Earth is spherical or not.

You really can't see the curvature of the Earth from the height of an airliner. Not with the naked eye anyway.

The diameter of the Earth is almost 42 million feet. An airliner cruises at about 42,000ft maximum, that's only one thousandth of the diameter.

Slight tangent, but of course the horizon is totally flat on a globe. The "curve" you see from higher up isn't the curve of the Earth, it's just the curve of the perimeter of the flat circular horizon: same reason that a round kitchen table has a curved edge, even though it is flat.

You really can't see the curvature of the Earth from the height of an airliner. Not with the naked eye anyway.

The diameter of the Earth is almost 42 million feet. An airliner cruises at about 42,000ft maximum, that's only one thousandth of the diameter.

Slight tangent, but of course the horizon is totally flat on a globe. The "curve" you see from higher up isn't the curve of the Earth, it's just the curve of the perimeter of the flat circular horizon: same reason that a round kitchen table has a curved edge, even though it is flat.

But at 42,000 feet, we can see further than 42,000 feet ... I'm not saying it's easy to see the curvature of the Earth from altitude ... but I believe we can ...

Not sure what the "round table" analogy means ... put our eye at table level and the table top looks flat ... like the Earth ...

But at 42,000 feet, we can see further than 42,000 feet ... I'm not saying it's easy to see the curvature of the Earth from altitude ... but I believe we can ...

Not sure what the "round table" analogy means ... put our eye at table level and the table top looks flat ... like the Earth ...

It's pretty marginal at that height. You can convince yourself you're seeing it. You can also convince yourself you're not. When it comes to "evidence" gathering by CTers and cranks, that's too ambiguous for them or the rest of us to rely on.

I have been to 50,000 feet exactly once for about 30 seconds. I've spent many, many hours at 42,000 in various conditions of sky and cloud and haze and day or night.

IME/IMO the difference between 42,000 and 50 is significant. At 50 the sky above is much darker and the horizon has a very distinct band of brown at the bottom, then light blue shading to dark blue, and not black, but a very late twilight deep blue above. The appearance of curvature changes, at least for me, from maybe 50/50 yes/no to more like 65/35. IOW I don't recall that it was utterly unequivocal, but it was strongly more likely than not.

I went up there specifically looking for the color and the curve, knowing it was probably a nearly once in a lifetime opportunity. So I was paying careful attention to what I saw.

At any height, from earthworm-level to the Moon or beyond, the horizon will form a perfect circle (assuming a perfectly spherical Earth). What changes is the angular size of that circle. From ground level, the circle is 180º across. From the Moon, it's only a couple of degrees across. At any height in between, it'll be somewhere in between those. How high you would have to be, then, to "see the curvature of the Earth" depends on how small a deviation from 180º you're able to discern. 42,000 feet or 50,000 feet is either one probably not enough. On the other hand, at 50,000 feet you'll definitely see some difference from being above so much of the atmosphere.

ST's vBulletin 3 Responsive Styles

Our newly refreshed styles in 2017, brings the old vb3 to the new level, responsive and modern feel. It comes with 3 colors with or without sidebar, fixed sized or fluid. Default vbulletin 3 style made responsive also available in the pack.
Purchase Our Style Pack Now